TCEC FRC3, CCC Rapid 2021 : Both Finals Underway

The previous post on the world's premier engine vs. engine tournaments, TCEC Cup 8, CCC Rapid 2021 : Semifinals Both Underway (March 2021), was all about semifinals. Here is a summary:-

TCEC: In TCEC Cup 8, the 32 starting engines have been winnowed to four engines in the semifinal. The final match will finish this week. The next event is scheduled to be FRC3, 'Fischer Random Chess 3 with the 16(+) Season 20 FRC engines'. • CCC: The Rapid 2021 'Elite Round' of six engines should finish in a few days. The top two will qualify into the 500 game final match.

This post is all about semifinals. Here is the current situation:-

TCEC: In the TCEC Cup 8 semifinal, Stockfish beat KomodoDragon +1-0=5 and LCZero beat AllieStein +1-0=11. In the final match, Stockfish beat LCZero +1-0=7. In all three matches, a single decisive game determined the winner.

FRC3 has reached the final match, where Stockfish and KomodoDragon are tied with one win each after 29 of the 50 games have been played. The following chart from the TCEC Wiki shows the different stages of the event.

TCEC FRC 3 (wiki.chessdom.org)

After the final match finishes, I'll have more to say about the tournament on my chess960 blog. I covered the previous edition in TCEC FRC2 (December 2020). In that event, Stockfish beat LCZero +8-0=42.

CCC: Stockfish is crushing Lc0 in the final match, which should finish this week. In the minimatch between the two engines for the qualifying 'Elite Round', Stockfish won +14-5=21. Looking ahead, what are the CCC's plans? Both the CCC club and the Discord channel are ghost towns.

[For further information from the various stakeholders in the engine-to-engine events, see the tab 'TCEC/CCC Links' at the top of this page. • NB: Leela = LC0 = LCzero]

Chess Can Be Heavy

'We watched the movie Queen's Gambit and it was impressive. We started playing chess ourselves and got a lot out of it: good sportsmanship, knowledge, challenges. It just seemed fitting to do something in the snow out in the back yard.'

Giant chess set built of ice (1:57) • '[Published on] Feb 16, 2021'

The description of the video says,

Vicki Carr and her daughter, Kim, built a huge chess set out of ice in their back yard.

Noting the family name and the Youtube channel, Ottawa Citizen, gives us a related story and another video: Ice cold checkmate: Manotick family builds life-sized chessboard in backyard (ottawa.ctvnews.ca). There we learn,

The chess pieces stand about two to three feet tall, with some pieces of solid snow and ice weighing more than 40 pounds. It took Carr and her mom Vicki a month to build the chessboard in their backyard.

For more cool ideas on this blog, see the previous posts, Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture (February 2010), and An Ice Rook (January 2013).

U.S. Chess Cities of the Year

In a recent post, The Philadelphia Connection (March 2021), I noted,

In 2019 we learned, Philadelphia Named 'Chess City of the Year' (uschess.org): 'The city of brotherly love was singled out this year for a number of reasons...'

The award for 'Chess City of the Year' is one of many awards made annually by the U.S. Chess Federation. I covered these a few years back in The USCF Awards (May 2015), where I collected the awards issued up to that time in a database:-

I found a summary of all awards in the 2013 USCF Yearbook, added the awards for 2014 & 2015, loaded the lists into a database, and ran some simple queries.

For this current post I dragged that database out of cold storage, then added the awards made since 2015 (all links USchess.org):-

• 2016-05-23: US Chess Annual Awards Announced
• 2017-06-07: The Winners are in: US Chess Annual Awards
• 2018-06-06: US Chess Annual Awards Winners Announced
• 2019-08-11: 2019 US Chess Annual Award Winners
• 2020-05-27: 2020 US Chess Annual Award Recipients

Although the first awards were made in 1979, the 'Chess City' award was started in 1983. Following is a list of the winners to date:-

CHESS CITY OF THE YEAR
1983 Pasadena, California
1984 New York, New York
1985 Foxboro, Massachusetts
1986 Charlotte, North Carolina; Somerset, New Jersey
1987 Pulaski, Virginia; Terre Haute, Indiana
1988 Albuquerque, New Mexico; Memphis, Tennessee; Southfield, Michigan
1989 Knoxville, Tennessee; Peoria, Illinois; Seattle, Washington; Tempe, Arizona; Lexington, Kentucky
1993 Durango, Colorado; Reno, Nevada
1994 Bloomington, Illinois; New York, New York
1995 Chicago, Illinois; Key West, Florida
1996 Tucson, Arizona; New York, New York
1997 Knoxville, Tennessee; Sioux Falls, South Dakota
1998 Peoria, Arizona
1999 San Francisco, California; Gilbert, Arizona
2000 Louisville, Kentucky; Dallas, Texas
2001 Kansas City, Missouri
2002 Miami, Florida; New York City; Seattle, Washington
2003 Nashville, Tennessee
2004 Lindsborg, Kansas
2005 Minneapolis, Minnesota
2006 Crossville, Tennessee; Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
2007 Stillwater, Oklahoma
2008 Tulsa, Oklahoma; Lubbock, Texas
2009 St. Louis, Missouri
2010 Nashville, Tennessee
2011 St. Louis, Missouri
2012 Los Angeles, California
2013 Chicago, Illinois
2014 Brownsville, TX
2015 Sunrise, FL
2016 Louisville, KY
2017 Franklin County, MS
2018 Charlotte, NC
2019 Philadelphia, PA
2020 New York, NY

Of the 38 years that have passed since the first award to Pasadena, only 35 years saw awards. For some reason, 1990 through 1992 are missing. Was this a mistake in the construction of the list, a reaction to the five awards made in 1989, or something else?

New York City heads the list in total number of awards: 1984, 1994, 1996, 2002, 2020. It might be interesting to determine which other cities received multiple awards, but that will have to wait until another time, if ever. It would definitely be interesting to learn the stories behind, e.g. '2015 Sunrise, FL', but that would be far more work than I am accustomed to doing.

The Condemnation of Fat Fritz

Two weeks ago, in an off-week engine post, The Transformation of Fat Fritz (February 2021), I noted,

For the past few years, whenever there was a controversy in the world of chess engines, Fat Fritz was somewhere nearby.

What was the controversy?

• 2021-02-18: Fat Fritz 2 is a rip-off (lichess.org); 'An important message from open source chess organizations.'

Signed, 'The Stockfish, Leela Chess Zero and Lichess teams', the message started,

A few days ago, ChessBase released Fat Fritz 2, described on their website as the "new number one" chess engine "with a massive new neural network, trained by Albert Silver with the original Fat Fritz." They advertise Fat Fritz 2 as using novel strong ideas compared to existing chess engines, but in reality Fat Fritz 2 is just Stockfish with a different neural network and minimal changes that are neither innovative nor appear to make the engine stronger.

The accusation was soon echoed by two of the most important chess news sites:-

• 2021-02-22: ChessBase?s Fat Fritz 2 condemned as "rip-off" Stockfish clone (chess24.com; Colin McGourty; comments) • 'Stockfish and Leela Chess Zero developers have joined together with Lichess to condemn what they see as false advertising by ChessBase of the recently released Fat Fritz 2 chess software.'
  
  
• 2021-02-25: Open Source Community Critical Of Chessbase, Fat Fritz 2 (chess.com; PeterDoggers) • 'The development teams behind the two most successful and influential open-source chess programs, Stockfish and Leela Chess Zero, have issued statements denouncing the commercial program Fat Fritz 2 and the company Chessbase that is selling the program for 99.90 euros.'

What did the engine experts have to say about the development? The storm of feedback started the day that ChessBase made its initial announcement.

• 2021-02-09: Fat Fritz 2 (talkchess.com)

That discussion alone totals 50 pages with 10 posts per page. Add another two dozen threads on the same subject on the Talkchess forum. This controversy could go on for months, maybe years. ChessBase GmbH certainly knows how to generate free publicity for itself.

The Philadelphia Connection

The previous post in Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), was Not Typical of This Artist (February 2021). I wrote, 'In this long-running series it's been nine months since we last saw a painting.' Now we have two in a row.

The item pictured below was titled 'Original Signed Morris Berd Chess Player Watercolor Gouache Painting'. The eBay search result said, '$799 or Best Offer'; the item listing said, 'Sold for US $799'. I've never understood why eBay presents this ambiguity about the price, but so it does.

The item description said,

Signed Morris Berd, "Chess Player", Watercolor Gouache Painting. It’s in the original frame. Untouched. Overall size including the frame. 19 1/2" by 25 1/2", visible painting size is 17 3/4" by 24"

The artist has a biography at Berd, Morris - Woodmere Art Museum (woodmereartmuseum.org; Philadelphia). It starts,

Morris Berd (1914 - 2007), born in Philadelphia, PA, was a longtime instructor at his alma mater, the University of the Arts [Philadelphia] and a mentor to several generations of Philadelphia artists.

In 2019 we learned, Philadelphia Named Chess City of the Year (uschess.org; by Jennifer Shahade): 'The city of brotherly love was singled out this year for a number of reasons...' The first reason was, 'Philadelphia is home to some of the most important Open events on the calendar, such as the World Open, the Philadelphia Open, the Liberty Bell Open and the National Chess Congress.'

March 1971 & 1996 'On the Cover'

In last month's post, February 1971 & 1996 'On the Cover' (February 2021), we saw that 'international chess was in the U.S. chess spotlight so many years ago'. This month the spotlight returns to U.S. chess.

Left: ?
Right: 'Wolff Scores! Wins Interplay U.S. Championship Ring'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

International Grandmaster Robert Byrne, winner of the 1970 American Open in Santa Monica, California. Photo by Beth Cassidy.

This is at least the second use of the same Byrne photo in CL. Another was seen in October 1966 'On the Cover' (October 2016).

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

Serving on Viswanathan Anand's team of seconds certainly did not hurt Patrick Wolff's game. He tied for first place in the 1995 Interplay U.S. Championship with Alexander Ivanov and Nick de Firmian. He won the playoff competition for possession of the Championship Ring, designed by Heraldica Imports, which sponsors the $100,000 New York Open every year.

We are very fortunate to have Interplay Productions as the main sponsor for both the Interplay U.S. Championship, and the Interplay U.S. Women's Championship. Interplay's enthusiastic support led to an exhibition match between Patrick Wolff and Anjelina Belakovskaya (who tied for the Women's title with Sharon Burtman), which was won by Wolff, +1-0=1.

Looking backward, the 1996 side of last month's 'On the Cover' featured the Kasparov - Anand match. Looking forward, I found a Larry Evans story, Grandmasters Disenchanted with USCF (sun-sentinel.com [cached]; October 1996), that informed,

The 43rd USA Championship quietly came and went last July. Few people heard about it until it was over. Once again 14 stars competed for our highest title in an obscure location with scarcely any advance publicity. Defending champ Patrick Wolff declined his invitation because he is entering law school. In an article initially rejected but later published in Chess Life, a journal of record, he scolded the U.S. Chess Federation for not showcasing its premier event.

As for Interplay, in its page on Interplay Entertainment, Wikipedia informs,

Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions [...] Interplay started publishing its own games, starting with Neuromancer and Battle Chess, in 1988, and then moved on to publish and distribute games from other companies, while continuing internal game development.

And for Battle Chess, Wikipedia explains,

Battle Chess is a computer game version of chess with animated three-dimensional graphics. It was originally developed and released by Interplay Entertainment for the Amiga in 1988 and subsequently on many other systems, including [...] In 1991, Battle Chess Enhanced was released by Interplay for the PC, featuring improved VGA graphics and a symphonic musical score that played from the CD-ROM. Battle Chess was critically acclaimed and commercially successful, resulting in two official follow-ups as well as several inspired games. Its remake, Battle Chess: Game of Kings, was released on Steam on December 11, 2015.

The Wikipedia page on the U.S. Chess Championship gives limited space to the many early sponsors of the event. Only sponsors since 1999 are mentioned.

TCEC Cup 8, CCC Rapid 2021 : Semifinals Both Underway

The previous report on the two world class ongoing engine vs. engine competitions was TCEC Side Events; CCC 'Rapid 2021' Nearing Semifinal (February 2021). Following is a summary of that report.

TCEC: The site is running a series of bonus events mingled with test events. Next on the plans for upcoming events is '!Cup8'. • CCC: In the multi-stage 'Rapid 2021', the 10 engine 'NN vs Classic' is underway. Next stage: 6 engine 'Elite Round'.

Both of the 'Next' events are currently underway. What's the current status?

TCEC: In TCEC Cup 8, the 32 starting engines have been winnowed to four engines in the semifinal: Stockfish vs. KomodoDragon & LCZero vs. AllieStein. The final match will finish this week. For the results of the previous cup, see Stockfish Wins TCEC Cup 7; CCC GPUs Back (November 2020). The next event is scheduled to be FRC3, 'Fischer Random Chess 3 with the 16(+) Season 20 FRC engines'.

CCC: Six engines qualified from the 'NN vs Classic' stage to the 'Elite Round'. The following crosstable for 'NN vs Classic' shows that the two engines finishing 7th and 8th -- SlowChess & Ethereal -- qualified.

Why is this? The rules specify:-

Elite Round: Engines ranked #1 to #6 of the "NN vs Classic" event. One engine max from the same engine family.

Missing from the 'Elite Round' are Stockfish Classic (finished 3rd) and Komodo (6th). This must be because they are in the same family as Stockfish (1st) and Dragon (4th). In both cases the NNUE member of the family finished ahead of the non-NNUE member.

The 'Elite Round' should finish in a few days. The top three engines -- Stockfish, Lc0, & Dragon -- are well ahead of the bottom three. It is nearly certain that two of those top three will qualify into the 500 game final match.

[For further information from the various stakeholders in the engine-to-engine events, see the tab 'TCEC/CCC Links' at the top of this page. • NB: Leela = LC0 = LCzero]